Saturday Video Vault: ‘Radio Ga Ga’ by Queen

It kind of goes without saying that music videos made in 1984 were heavy on the Orwellian symbolism, at least for those artists who were savvy enough to see the sybological potential of music video. And there was no savvier rock group — maybe ever — than Queen. (You can’t beat a band with a couple of white dudes with afros plus the absolutely fantastic Freddie Mercury.) So enjoy “Radio Ga Ga”, from Queen, which this enterprising Youtubian updated with restored footage from the epic 1927 Fritz Lang film “Metropolis,” which (in less crisp form) was the basis for the Queen music video. Great song, great video:

From the “production notes” of the Youtubian “restorer” who goes by the, um, odd moniker “Barfnuts”:

The original “Radio Ga Ga” video used a poor quality print that was one of the only ones available at the time.

Only one clip of Metropolis footage from the original “Radio Gaga” video could not be replaced as the affected clip was not present on the restored release. The assumption is that the production company deemed it un-restorable and cut it out. Thus, the original clip from the Ga Ga video was used [00:26-00:31]. I guess you could call it a small marker of how different the two copies are from that shot to the next.